Joe Girardi seemed to know the question was coming. He had, after all, heard it quite often this season. Why in the world do the Yankees struggle against pitchers they’ve never seen?

“I get tired of talking about it, I know that,” Girardi said. “You look for the ball, and you hit it. That’s the bottom line. I know when you haven’t seen a guy you aren’t exactly sure what he’s going to do to you, but we have a lot of good hitters in the lineup.”

Two of those good hitters are Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. Combined, those two went 0-for-7 against Royals starter Bryan Bullington.

The only Yankee who had ever faced Bullington in the big leagues was Austin Kearns, who had one at-bat against him five years ago.

Jeter: “He threw the ball well, that’s the bottom line. Whether we’ve seen him once or a hundred times, the way he threw the ball today, he’s going to beat us.”

Rodriguez: “Today I don’t think that was the (problem). This guy was just very transparent. He was very aggressive, throwing four-seamers all over the strike zone. I think usually when you have a crafty lefty who can throw changeups and sink it and cuts it, (being unfamiliar) potentially could be an excuse. Today there was no excuse. He absolutely got the best of us.”

Here’s the postgame audio from those two.

Jeter

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Rodriguez

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